Saturday, 31 January 2015

The following is an interesting exchange between Leanne Wood and Carwyn Jones, First Minister of Wales in the Welsh Parliament on the 27th January 2015:

Leanne Wood

Diolch, Lywydd. First Minister, yesterday the Environmental Audit Committee at Westminster published a significant report and they made a key recommendation. I quote:

‘A moratorium on the extraction of unconventional gas through fracking is needed to avoid both the inconsistency with our climate change obligations and to allow the uncertainty surrounding environmental risks to be fully resolved.’

Plaid Cymru supports a moratorium on fracking, First Minister, for the same reasons. Does the Welsh Government agree?

Carwyn Jones

Well, you can’t support a moratorium on fracking unless you agree that licences should be devolved. I take it that licences should be devolved and then we should consider an effective moratorium on fracking.

Leanne Wood

Yesterday, First Minister, your party tabled amendments to the Infrastructure Bill in Westminster that would see the devolution of licensing for onshore fracking to the Scottish Parliament. Not only did you exclude Wales from having the same powers, but your party refused to support a Plaid Cymru amendment for the devolution of these powers to Wales. Do you want these powers—the same powers of licensing for onshore fracking, First Minister?

Carwyn Jones

Yes.

Leanne Wood

Well, I think many people are going to be confused and frustrated, First Minister that you say one thing and you do another. You’ve suggested concern about fracking, but you haven’t made any representations to the Westminster Government, have you? You say that you want us to be offered the same powers as Scotland, but you take no action in order to gain such powers. You say that you oppose Tory austerity, but you vote with them to entrench it, and you bemoan Wales’s fiscal disadvantage, but refuse to take greater responsibility for it. First Minister, you offer warm words when it comes to concerns raised about fracking, but you don’t want the powers to stop them, do you? Otherwise, you would have instructed your MPs to support Plaid Cymru’s amendment yesterday. When Plaid Cymru says it, we mean it. When Labour says it, you say one thing and is it not the case that you actually do another?

Carwyn Jones

I do wonder sometimes, I think—. The leader of Plaid Cymru asked me a direct question and I gave her the most direct answer imaginable, and she denies I ever gave her an answer. I mean, the reality is this: the issue of fracking is something that representations have been made on as part of the St David’s Day process. We want to see it devolved to Wales. There is no question that somehow Scotland should get something and Wales should not, and it’s part of the St David’s Day process. You are either part of that process or you are not. The last thing we should do is move to a situation where we try to have powers given to us in an ad hoc fashion. We need Silk part 1, we need Silk part 2, we need delivery of Smith with regard to Wales and discussion about that, and then we will see progress. That is the position of Welsh Labour, and that is the position, I believe, of the people of Wales.

The next step is obviously to obtain copies of correspondence etc to see exactly how hard the Welsh Government have tried to get powers over fracking devolved.

Monday, 26 January 2015

A series of housing developments in villages near Wrexham will push local services to breaking point, according to Plaid Cymru’s Parliamentary candidate Carrie Harper.

She says plans for two separate housing applications in Llay and another in Rhosrobin will total 911 houses.

Plaid Cymru is urging Planning Committee members to consider the collective impact of these developments, which together amount to a new village for the area. They state it is vital to consider the huge impact the new housing plans on greenfield sites will have on local infrastructure such as schools, health and other key services.

Carrie Harper, who as a former county councillor sat on the planning committee for four years, said:

“Plaid Cymru have been arguing against the over-development of Wrexham for many years now. We are already seeing the impact of a decade’s worth of over development on local services such as the Maelor. This issue simply can’t be ignored any longer.”

“Let’s be clear, there is no local need for the level of unaffordable housing we are having forced on us."

In 2011 Plaid councillors persuaded Wrexham council to reject plans to allocate land for 12,000 new houses - a level of development demanded by the Cardiff Labour Government as part of the borough’s new Local Development Plan. The council decided that ‘to continue with that level of development would threaten our communities in terms of our schools, our road networks, our health service, our identity and social cohesion’ and opted for a much lower figure over a 10-year period. The rejection of the plan was also in line with local consultation that demonstrated overwhelming opposition to further extremely high housing development levels.

A revised LDP process is still on-going but Plaid Cymru is reiterating calls for the council to protect local communities such as Llay from being concreted over by developers with developments proposed for Gresford Road and Hayward’s Field.

She said: “Developers have had a free for all in Wrexham for far too long and it’s time this unsustainable level of development was stopped. It still amazes me that the amount of houses being planned in the future are not part of a wider exercise looking at the impact of an increasing population on our local infrastructure.

"Where are the funding increases for our local schools and the NHS to go along with these new villages? The truth is that no one, not the local council, not the Welsh Government have done a single piece of work looking at this issue, despite it being raised time and time again. How on earth does that make any sense? We are being severely let down.

“Just looking at these applications for Llay and Rhosrobin alone. If they get the go ahead we will see a population increase of about 2000 people, including about 300 children. Where will these children go to school? How will the Maelor hospital cope with this population increase when it’s already at breaking point? What about local GPs and dentists, what about council services that are also under pressure? What impact will more cars on the road have? It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

"These questions are vitally important and absolutely relevant. I would say to the councillors tasked with making a decision on these applications, if you do not have satisfactory answers to these questions, the only responsible course of action is to turn these plans down.”

Wednesday, 21 January 2015

Plaid Cymru calls for same powers as Scotland to protect Wales from fracking

The Party of Wales Shadow Minister for Sustainable Communities, Energy and Food Llyr Gruffydd has called for Wales to be granted the same power as Scotland to protect its communities from fracking.

Llyr Gruffydd, pictured at the Borras anti-fracking camp, challenged the Minister for Natural Resources on the progress made to devolve the power over fracking to Wales.

When the Minister claimed that “many conversations” had happened between the Welsh Government and UK Government on the matter the Plaid Cymru AM pointed out that the UK Energy Minister had last week told Plaid Cymru’s Jonathan Edwards MP that “no discussions” had happened.

The Party of Wales Shadow Minister for Sustainable Communities, Energy and Food Llyr Gruffydd said:

“The people of Wales should have the power to decide on licensing for fracking in their communities. Plaid Cymru wants Wales to have responsibility over fracking so that we can introduce a moratorium on a process that carries a host of unknown risks for the environment and public health.

"The Scottish Government has made this happen there, but unfortunately the Welsh Government has done absolutely nothing to stand up for Wales’ interests.

“It is now clear that the Labour Government has not made any representations to the UK Government for these powers to be devolved which suggests that Labour sees no need to challenge Westminster’s policy of promoting and encouraging fracking in Wales.

“On top of this, Labour refused to support Plaid Cymru tabled amendments to the UK Government’s Infrastructure Bill to exclude Wales from the measures which would allow fracking operations under people’s homes. Scotland has already been given this protection. Why is Wales treated differently?

“The Labour Government’s unwillingness to fight for these powers makes it clear to me that it is happy to see companies drill for shale gas under Welsh homes. Plaid Cymru on the other hand will not stand idly by and let our communities be exposed to such unacceptable risks.”

Tuesday, 20 January 2015

Plaid Cymru Councillor accuses Wrexham Council of 'suppressing the demand' for Welsh-medium educationWrecsam Plaid Cymru Councillor, Arfon Jones has written to the Welsh Government Education Minister, Huw Lewis to complain that Wrecsam Council is deliberately suppressing the demand for Welsh Medium Education by cutting funding of £23,000 to Mudiad Meithrin.

Mudiad Meithrin is the only provider of Welsh-medium early years care and education in the voluntary sector in Wrecsam. By cutting the entire grant, Cllr Jones believes the authority is reducing the availability of early years provision and thus children not having the opportunity to benefit from early years care and education through the medium of Welsh.

Cllr Jones said: "This proposed cut in funding is ill-thought out and the impact of it has not been properly assessed. The £23,000 investment provides excellent value in that it supports more than 700 children in pre-school settings. Where else could we find such value? Certainly not in-house at the Council.

"Any cut in funding at nursery level will have a knock-on effect on reception numbers at Welsh-medium primary schools. This flies in the face of one of Wrecsam Council's own ‘ priorities’, which is to increase the number of children entering Welsh-medium education. This will not happen if the cut goes ahead. In addition, the council's own Welsh In Education Strategic Plan attributes extensive responsibility to the Mudiad to deliver the early years part of the plan, which is now wholly misleading."

Councillor Jones went on to say: "What is particularly disturbing about this whole process is the rationale behind it and that is a deliberate attempt to suppress demand for Welsh-medium education because the authority knows that they will struggle to provide places both at primary and secondary level in future years.

"I very much hope Huw Lewis takes note of my letter and rejects Wrecsam's Welsh in Education Strategic Plan. He should challenge the council’s lack of enthusiasm in promoting the Welsh Government's aspirations to increase the number of Welsh learners and, more importantly, not to treat Welsh less favourably than English."

Monday, 19 January 2015

North Wales has nearly 400 fewer hospital beds and 350 fewer nurses than five years ago, according to new figures obtained by Plaid Cymru – the Party Of Wales.

The figures, released following a series of Freedom of Information requests, shows that in October 2009 the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board had 2677 in-patient beds and employed 6276 nurses. By October 2014 the figures were 2284 in-patient beds, a 15% fall, and 5907 nurses, a 6% drop.

Wrexham Maelor Hospital saw a drop of 50 beds coupled with the closure of Flint and Llangollen community hospitals during that period (1).

At the same time, the number of inpatient cases in North Wales rose from 80,867 to 86,249 – a 6.7% rise. But in Wrexham Maelor the rise in the past year alone has been 15% - from 26331 to 30409.

Plaid Cymru’s North Wales AM Llyr Gruffydd said that such a reduction in beds and nursing staff was contributing to the difficulties the NHS was facing in terms of coping with a growing elderly population and ensuring there were beds for those brought in by ambulance to A&E.

Mr Gruffydd said: “Closing wards such as the Acton ward in the Wrexham Maelor , coupled with the loss of many community hospitals, help explain why we are seeing long queues of ambulances outside our main hospitals and why people waiting so long for operations.

“The health board claims that nurse recruitment is the problem but nurses tell us they’ve applied to work Bank shifts and not heard back from the board. Instead, we’re seeing expensive agency nurses being recruited when we need longer-term planning in terms of workforce recruitment and retention.”

He was also critical of the health board’s claims that care was now focussed in the community: “These cuts in hospital services would be easier to stomach if we had seen an equivalent increase in funding for community care and GPs, but the truth is that we are facing a looming crisis in GP and primary-care services. I fear GP shortages will be the ‘health story’ of 2015, unless something drastic is done about it.

“Care at a hospital might be an out-dated concept for health bosses who want to see more care delivered at home but, until the structure and provisions are in place to ensure that home-care is functioning properly and can be delivered within budget, then there is a real danger that the system will fail if they reduce the number of beds and nurses.

“In recent years, Labour has underfunded the NHS in Wales and, as a result, we have seen a health service struggling to meet demand, which is rising with every new medical breakthrough and with a population that is living longer. The Cardiff Labour Government is presiding over an NHS that employs fewer nurses and has fewer facilities than it did five years ago – that’s a huge indictment of their misrule.”

Plaid Cymru leader, Leanne Wood, also stepped into the debate, arguing that Plaid Cymru is the only party bringing practical solutions to the health debate in Wales.

She repeated the Party of Wales' plan to recruit 1,000 extra doctors in Wales to ease the pressure on existing GPs and A&E departments, and its long-term aim to integrate health and social care.

Ms Wood said:

"The Welsh Health Service is one of our nation's proudest and most precious creations.

"However, there is no hiding from the fact that this crucial public service is facing a double hit from the Coalition Government's destructive agenda of cuts and privatisation, and the Labour Welsh Government's gross mismanagement.

"In Wales, only the Party of Wales is demanding financial fairness for our nation so that an over-stretched and under-resourced Health Service has the tools it needs to meet targets and deliver the best care possible.

"With our proposals to integrate health and social care, create a thousand extra doctors in Wales, and improve ambulance services in rural areas, we are the only party bringing practical solutions to the health debate in Wales.

"From ambulance response times to A&E waiting times to cancer treatment waiting times, the Labour party's record on managing our Health Service in Wales reads like a catalogue of shortcomings. The First Minister's denial surrounding these problems is failing staff and patients and it is time he woke up from his complacency.

"In the dying days of the Scottish referendum campaign, the Labour party also teamed up with the Conservative party to protect the Barnett Formula and therefore secure the continued under-funding of Welsh public services.

"To protect the Welsh Health Service, Wales must return as many Plaid Cymru MPs as possible in May to take on the privatisation agenda and to demand an end to the chronic under-funding of our nation so that we can secure the best outcomes for Wales."

Up to third of the GPs in Wrexham could retire from frontline patient care during the next five years, it has been revealed.

Figures produced by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) show the extent of the shortage of GPs in the Wrexham area.

The RCGP said that 33% of all GPs in Wrexham are over 55 – among the highest in Wales. Across Wales they expect 23% of all GPs to withdraw from frontline care but acknowledge the situation is much more acute in Wrexham.

Plaid Cymru candidate for Wrexham Carrie Harper said: “Plaid Cymru pledged in 2013 to recruit 1,000 new doctors if the Party of Wales wins the 2016 elections to the National Assembly.

“These figures from the RCGP illustrate the desperate need to tackle the shortage of doctors across Wales. Figures obtained by Plaid Cymru show that the Welsh Government has cut spending on doctor recruitment to just £1,115 in 2013-14, at a time when it is most needed.

“There are already well documented problems with surgeries in Hightown and other parts of Wrexham struggling to cope with demand and unable to recruit new GPs to fill vacancies. It’s about time we saw a proper training programme for GPs in Wales.”

Llyr Gruffydd, Plaid Cymru AM for North Wales, added: “There is a ticking GP time bomb in Wales, and particularly Wrexham, and action must be taken before this turns into a crisis.

“More GPs are needed as Wales grapples with a growing and ageing population and efforts need to be stepped up to tackle it now. It is no good Welsh Government Ministers sitting on their hands – we need action before it is too late.”

Wednesday, 14 January 2015

This article by Rhoda Emlyn - Jones in the News Opinion of WalesOnline prompted me to write the following letter in defence of organisations who provide a high quality low cost service on behalf of public authorities and who are being unfairly targeted for savings by public authorities hell bent on protecting their own inefficient bureaucracies:

There is no doubt that many local authorities throughout Wales are cutting funding to third sector organisations and moving them in house so as to protect their own staff without any consideration as to who provides the best service to the user

A case in point is my own authority, Wrecsam County Borough Council, where they propose to stop funding to the Mudiad Meithrin, who provide low cost and skilled language advice to all Welsh nursery settings in Wrecsam and to bring it all in-house where they claim they will be able to deliver identical services within existing capacity; and this in an authority where the numbers of Welsh essential speakers (outside schools) are in single figures.

Whilst this particular service is not statutory, it is a Welsh Government aspiration to increase the number of Welsh learners and it is indeed included in Wrecsam's Welsh in Education Strategic Plan, which outlines a major role for Mudiad Meithrin in promoting Welsh education in early years education. Clearly this Strategic Plan is now of little or no value and hopefully the government will see it for what it is...lip service to Welsh education.

The following is a letter to the Wrexham Leader from a Labour cheerleader who was trying to re-write history as to the truth behind Labour's closure of the Plas Madoc Leisure Centre. Unfortunately for the author, we that tried unsuccessfully to save Plas Madoc did obtain a recorded vote on the decision making.

This was my response to Mr Moore's letter:

Dear Editor,

I would be grateful if you would allow me to correct the misleading letter by Stephen Moore of Chirk "Labour minority backed closure" Leader Letters, January 13th. In his letter Mr Moore claims that the closure of Plas Madoc was down to the minority of Labour Councillors who left the party.

The real facts are that the decision to close Plas Madoc was made at a Full Council meeting held on the 24th February 2014, when the Labour led administration (all 23 of them) introduced a budget which proposed a saving by closing Plas Madoc Leisure Centre. The then opposition proposed an amendment which if passed would have kept Plas Madoc open. That amendment was defeated where 22 of the 23 Labour Councillors voted to close Plas Madoc (1 abstained).

In the main vote to pass the budget (and by implication to close Plas Madoc) 20 Labour members voted Yes whilst 3 abstained.

Seems to me Mr Moore that it was a substantial majority of Labour Councillors who voted to close Plas Madoc. It was only later and in the face of public outrage and falling support did Labour Councillors past and present do a complete U-turn and offered the Splash Magic Trust back just 10% of what they had cut less than 12 months previously.

Plaid Cymru Westminster candidate Carrie Harper is calling on Wrexham Council to increase the amount of tenders and contracts allocated to local firms by 25%, which could create up to 1500 jobs in the county borough.

The call follows an FOI request from Plaid revealing that only 33% of Wrexham council services put out to tender are procured within the county borough area.

Carrie Harper said:” The low level of procurement of services from the council in Wrexham and also from Welsh based suppliers generally is something we have been monitoring for a number of years. It remains consistentlylow. “

“The FOI reveals that, out of a total of over £116 million spent by the council on procuring services in during the last financial year, only 33% was spent within Wrexham and only 45% from within Wales.

"This just does not make any sense economically and the council needs a shift of perspective in order to secure as much local benefit as possible from its spending.

"The vitally important point to remember here is that creating these jobs does not cost an additional penny, it’s just about having a more local focus and spending smarter. “A progressive strategy designed to increase local procurement by 25% could produce up to 1,500 new local jobs. With the unemployment rate in Wrexham currently standing at 1,673, that can have a huge impact on our local economy and people's lives.

"There are also other significant benefits if the council chooses to positively influence how the supply chain re-spends the income it receives. As well as creating new jobs, we can look to tackle issues such as deprivation and support the creation of new business, boost spending in local shops and create more apprenticeships.

"This is genuinely very exciting; we know that money spent with local businesses stays in the local economy. I’m increasingly angered that council spending levels within Wrexham remain so low and this has to change.”

Carrie Harper said there were good examples of how this had been achieved in other councils: “In 2012 the Federation of Small Businesses commissioned a report looking at how council supply chains can help small businesses. They quote the example of Manchester City council which, through a strategy based on place, economic development and influence, increased the re-spend back into the Manchester economy from 25p to 42p in every pound.

"Wrexham can do this as well and transform our local economy. The only question to ask is why we’re not doing this already? It’s only red tape that makes it more difficult for smaller local businesses to bid for these contracts and this issue has been successfully tackled elsewhere.”

As well as the obvious local benefits to Wrexham, Plaid’s strategy is to increase local procurement from council spending across Wales by 25%. This could create up to 50,000 jobs across the country and transform the Welsh economy. Plaid Cymru is wholly committed to making life better for the people of Wrexham and Wales, that is our main objective

“We know what consultants do - just a year ago, the Labour-run council spent £52,000 on consultants to be told that Plas Madoc Leisure Centre should be closed. Consultants come in to do a hatchet job and are often used by councillors and senior officers as a cover for making unpopular decisions. We pay senior officers on the council very good wages to make difficult decisions and now we’re being told the expertise isn’t there. It’s not a great advert for the council. “We all realise that the council, like all other councils in Wales, is having to make savings. What many Wrecsam people will find hard to stomach is that an extra £1m in savings will have to be found just to pay for consultants to state the obvious. It’s a perverse way to try to save money. “It’s not really a surprise that the previous Labour administration was so keen on signing the contract. After all, Labour on a UK level is also very fond of PriceWaterhouseCooper and the firm has even seconded staff to work for free in the office of Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls and other senior Labour politicians. To have private consultants shaping a party’s policies so blatantly is very unhealthy and begs questions about who is really running Labour."

Plaid Cymru understands that six PWC members have been working in the Guildhall over the past few months and will be presenting their findings to the council later this month.

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